Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2010"

Production, Consumption, Prosumption The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’

Abstract: This article deals with the rise of prosumer capitalism. Prosumption involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption). It is maintained that earlier forms of capitalism (producer and consumer capitalism) were themselves characterized by prosumption. Given the recent explosion of user-generated content online, we have reason to see prosumption as increasingly central. In prosumer capitalism, control and exploitation take on a different character than in the other forms of capitalism: there is a trend toward unpaid rather than paid labor and toward offering products at no cost, and the system is marked by a new abundance where scarcity once predominated. These trends suggest the possibility of a new, prosumer, capitalism.

Envisioning Real Utopias

Abstract: Rising inequality of income and power, along with the recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet there has been a global retreat by the Left: on the assumption that liberal capitalism is the only game in town, political theorists tend to dismiss as utopian any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations. As Fredric Jameson first argued, it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism. Erik Olin Wright's "Envisioning Real Utopias" is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. Building on a lifetime's work analyzing the class system in the developed world, as well as exploring the problem of the transition to a socialist alternative, Wright has now completed a systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors. "Envisioning Real Utopias" aims to put the social back into socialism, laying the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.

Living in the End Times

Abstract: Book synopsis: There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis Slavoj Žižek has identified the four horsemen of this coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions and ruptures But, he asks, if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the end times? In a major new analysis of our global situation, Žižek argues that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief: ideological denial, explosions of anger and attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and withdrawal For this edition, Žižek has written a long afterword that leaves almost no subject untouched, from WikiLeaks to the nature of the Chinese Communist Party

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

Abstract: The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America's economic missteps, the soundness of this country's economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system. Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is "an insanely great economist, in ways you can't really appreciate unless you're deep into the field" (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those "too big to fail," while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new "bubble capitalism." Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets. America as a nation faces huge challenges-in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing-and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. The battle may finally give the lie to theories of a "rational" market or to the view that America's global economic dominance is inevitable and unassailable. For anyone watching with indignation while a reckless Wall Street destroyed homes, educations, and jobs; while the government took half-steps hoping for a "just-enough" recovery; and while bankers fell all over themselves claiming not to have seen what was coming, then sought government bailouts while resisting regulation that would make future crises less likely, Freefall offers a clear accounting of why so many Americans feel disillusioned today and how we can realize a prosperous economy and a moral society for the future.

The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation and Other Essays

Abstract: On its original publication in 1919, The Place of Science in Modern Civilization was recognized as a major contribution, and today Veblen continues to command attention and respect. This volume includes some of his most seminal work, essays that have critical, almost devastating implications for capitalist society and mainstream economic theory as well as Marxism and socialism in general. The continuing power of Veblen's work derives both from the penetration and range of his analysis and the arguable failure of modern society and social science theory to change in any material respect since he worked. The continuing relevance of his topics and ideas is manifest. In this volume in particular, Veblen addresses controversies over the relations of deduction and induction and efforts to produce truth, belief systems, and language, disputes about the significance of business mergers and acquisitions, and questions about the historical meaning and status of socialism. All of these are subjects of continuing interest and concern. The first six essays are fundamental contributions to the study of the preconceptions that drive thought and modern science and their origins. The next nine essays apply Veblen's thinking to critiques of other economists and capitalism. Three of these nine essays represent fundamental components of Veblen's view of capitalism and its problems are of lasting interpretive and analytic value. The final three essays in the book, and in particular the last two, are examples of a genre of thinking which, while not uncommon among social scientists of the period in which Veblen worked haven been discredited and certainly have no lasting value, being conjectural history using such concepts as natural selection. As Warren Samuels notes in his stimulating introduction to this new edition, "Veblen was heterodox, iconoclastic, sardonic, caustic, and satiric. He also was brilliant, penetrating, original, courageous, literarily dramatic, and unique, as well as intellectually distant." This collection will be of interest to economists and other social scientists interested in the specific topics addressed here, as well as researchers in the history of ideas.

(Reseña) Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy.

Abstract: Introduction: Institutional Change, Capitalist Development PART I: GRADUAL CHANGE: FIVE SECTORAL TRAJECTORIES 1. Five Sectors 2. Industry-wide Collective Bargaining: Shrinking Core, Expanding Fringes 3. Intermediary Organization: Declining Membership, Rising Tensions 4. Social Policy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare Corporatism 5. Public Finance: The Fiscal Crisis of the Postwar State 6. Corporate Governance: The Decline of Germany Inc. PART II: SYSTEMIC CHANGE: PATTERNS AND CAUSES 7. Systemic Change: Five Parallel Trajectories 8. From System to Process 9. Endogenous Change: Time, Age, and the Self-Undermining of Institutions 10. Time's Up: Positive Externalities Turning Negative PART III: DISORGANIZATION: BRINGING CAPITALISM BACK IN 11. Disorganization as Liberalization 12. Convergence, Non-convergence, Divergence 13. 'Economizing' and the Evolution of Political-Economic Institutions 14. Internationalization 15. German Unification 16. History 17. Bringing Capitalism Back In

Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism

Abstract: In this short, highly readable book, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a condensation of the central ideas of The Modern World-System, his monumental study of capitalism as an integrated, historical entity. In developing an anatomy of capitalism over the past five centuries, Wallerstein provides one of the most coherent and succinct introductions tot he genesis of a global system of exploitation. Particular attention is focused on the emergence and development of a unified world market, and the concomitant international division of labor. Wallerstein argues forcefully, against the grain of much current opinion, that capitalism has brought about an actual, not merely relative, immiseration in the countries of the Third World. The economic and social problems of underdeveloped countries will remain unresolved as long as they remain located within a framework of world capitalism. Historical Capitalism is a welcome and stimulating synthesis of one of the most influential assessments of capitalism as a world-historic mode of production.

The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements, and Institutional Change in Markets

Abstract: While much of economic sociology focuses on the stabilizing aspects of markets, the social movement perspective emphasizes the role that contentiousness plays in bringing institutional change and innovation to markets. Markets are inherently political, both because of their ties to the regulatory functions of the state and because markets are contested by actors who are dissatisfied with market outcomes and who use the market as a platform for social change. Research in this area focuses on the pathways to market change pursued by social movements, including direct challenges to corporations, the institutionalization of systems of private regulation, and the creation of new market categories through institutional entrepreneurship. Much contentiousness, while initially disruptive, works within the market system by producing innovation and restraining capitalism from destroying the resources it depends on for survival.

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World

Abstract: The big economic story of our times is not the Great Recession. It is how China and India began to embrace neoliberal ideas of economics and attributed a sense of dignity and liberty to the bourgeoisie they had denied for so long. The result was an explosion in economic growth and proof that economic change depends less on foreign trade, investment, or material causes, and a whole lot more on ideas and what people believe. Or so says Deirdre N. McCloskey in "Bourgeois Dignity", a fiercely contrarian history that wages a similar argument about economics in the West. Here she turns her attention to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to reconsider the birth of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. An utterly fascinating sequel to her critically acclaimed book "The Bourgeois Virtues", "Bourgeois Dignity" is a feast of intellectual riches from one of our most spirited and ambitious historians.

Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet

Abstract: This article argues that in informational capitalism, the notion of class should not be confined to capital as one class and wage labor as the other class. The notion of class needs to be expanded to include everybody who creates and recreates spaces of common experience, such as user-generated content on the Internet, through their practices. These spaces and experiences are appropriated and thereby expropriated and exploited by capital to accumulate capital. The rise of informational capitalism requires us to rethink the notion of class and to relate the class concept to knowledge labor.

Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy

Abstract: Confronting climate change is now understood as a problem of 'decarbonising' the global economy: ending our dependence on carbon-based fossil fuels. This book explores whether such a transformation is underway, how it might be accelerated, and the complex politics of this process. Given the dominance of global capitalism and free-market ideologies, decarbonisation is dependent on creating carbon markets and engaging powerful actors in the world of business and finance. Climate Capitalism assesses the huge political dilemmas this poses, and the need to challenge the entrenched power of many corporations, the culture of energy use, and global inequalities in energy consumption. Climate Capitalism is essential reading for anyone wanting to better understand the challenge we face. It will also inform a range of student courses in environmental studies, development studies, international relations, and business programmes.

The Rise of Financial Capitalism: International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason

Abstract: 1. Historical background for the rise of financial capitalism: commercial revolution, rise of nation states, and capital markets 2. The development of an information network and the international capital markets of London and Amsterdam 3. The early capital markets of London and Amsterdam 4. The Banque Royale and the South Sea Company: how the bubbles began 4. Appendix: were the Mississippi and south sea bubbles rational? 5. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company: how the bubbles ended 6. The English and Dutch East India Companies: how the west was won 7. The integration of the English and Dutch capital markets in peace and war 8. The English and Dutch capital markets in panics 9. The capital markets during revolutions, war and peace 10. A tale of two revolutions: international capital flows 1792-1819 11. The London and Amsterdam stock markets, 1800-1825.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

Abstract: Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy Joseph E. Stiglitz W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 Joseph Stiglitz's Freefall is another excellent discussion of the global economic crisis, authored by a man who ranks high among the commentators. Stiglitz was the chief economist at the World Bank during the East Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998, and then chaired the United Nations commission that sought reforms for the global financial and monetary system. He was a member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. This is his fifth book. There seem to be a great many Nobel Prize winners in Economics (whose collective wisdom doesn't seem to have saved the world from its financial travails), but it would surely be amiss not to mention that Stiglitz is among them. This book testifies to his distinction in that select group. Because Freefall can hardly examine the crisis without covering much of the same ground as the other books we have reviewed, we will avoid repeating that analysis here. We prefer to focus on those aspects of Stiglitz's discussion that address unresolved issues or that most bring his own learning to bear: * His view of the plight in which today's "capitalism" finds itself. * What he says (and yet doesn't say) about the whirlpool of global finance. * His critique of the response that the U.S. Federal Reserve and government have made to the crisis, including what he thinks should have been done. * In connection with this critique, his reflections on the performance both of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations' actions through the end of 2009. * What reforms Stiglitz considers needed. His view of today's "capitalism." Although Stiglitz affirms "that markets lie at the heart of every successful economy" and is by no means anticapitalist, he shares the view that has come to be held by a great many thoughtful commentators that today's "capitalism" bears little resemblance to the competitive "private enterprise" that supporters of a market economy have long championed. He speaks of an "ersatz capitalism" that features a "corporate welfare state" driven by "blatant greed" and an ideology, sponsored by special interests, that has made a fetish of "self-regulating markets." "The current crisis has uncovered fundamental flaws in the capitalist system, or at least the peculiar version of capitalism that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century in the United States." This realization is an intellectual earthquake. It should profoundly redirect the thinking of America's free-market enthusiasts, who will do their philosophy a great disservice if they insist on blind loyalty to the current system. We saw the same theme in our review of John Bogle's The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,1 where we wrote that "in common with many others today, Bogle sees that the market system has become untracked - has 'lost its soul' - and needs much devoted attention (especially from capitalism's supporters...)." It is worth noting that Bogle saw the problem as societal, not just economic. "Our society is moving in the wrong direction," with "absurdities and inequities that we've come to accept" in a "wealth-oriented, things-fixated society" within which "the lure of money has overwhelmed the prestige of reputation." This suggests that even though national and international financial reforms are essential, they cannot appropriately be understood as a "quick fix" that will be sufficient to put things right. There needs to be deep concern for the systemic health of the society. What Stiglitz says (and doesn't say) about the multi-trillion dollar ocean of global finance. In our review of David Smick's The World is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy, 2 we found that "the risks Smick describes are so many and so palpable that any objective observer would be justified in considering them intolerable. …

The end of the free market : who wins the war between states and corporations?

Abstract: Leaders of authoritarian governments have embraced the capitalist system not only in order to maximise economic performance in their countries but also with the aim of promoting their political goals and furthering their political dominance. This practice gave rise to the phenomenon of state capitalism. In a period of severe crisis for the global capitalist system, state capitalism challenges free-market capitalism conceptually and practically: it offers an attractive alternative to leaders of emerging economies and it distorts capitalism’s efficiency, thus undermining future recovery. Free-market states need to counter this double challenge by answering the call of smart regulation while practicing the tenets of free trade and open markets that they preach.

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth

Abstract: Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision--if we don't alter course. In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion. Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Institutional Analysis

Abstract: It is increasingly accepted that "institutions matter" for economic organization and outcomes. The last decade has seen significant expansion in research examining how institutional contexts affect the nature and behavior of firms, the operation of markets, and economic outcomes. Yet "institutions" conceal a multitude of issues and perspectives. Much of this research has been comparative, and followed different models such as "varieties of capitalism", "national business systems", and "social systems of production". This Handbook explores these issues, perspectives, and models, with the leading scholars in the area contributing chapters to provide a central reference point for academics, scholars, and students. Features Covers models such as 'varieties of capitalism', 'national business systems', and 'social systems of production'. Chapters by leading international scholars Covers issues such as corporate governance, employment, and financial systems Chapters on theory and methodology

The Communist Hypothesis

Abstract: We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy - the form of state suited to capitalism - and to the inevitable and 'natural' character of the most monstrous inequalities. Alain Badiou's formulation of the communist hypothesis has travelled around the world since it was first aired in early 2008, in his book, "The Meaning of Sarkozy". The hypothesis is partly a demand to reconceptualize communism after the twin deaths of the Soviet Union and neoliberalism, but also a fresh demand for universal emancipation. As third way reforms prove as empty in practice as in theory, Badiou's manifesto is a galvanizing call to arms that needs to be reckoned with by anyone concerned with the future of our planet.

Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction

Abstract: Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Corporate cooptation of organic and fair trade standards

Abstract: Recent years have seen a substantial increase in alternative agrifood initiatives that attempt to use the market to curtail the negative social and environmental effects of production and trade in a globalized food system. These alternatives pose a challenge to capital accumulation and the externalization of environmental costs by large agribusiness, trading and retail firms. Yet the success of these alternatives also makes them an inviting target for corporate participation. This article examines these dynamics through a case study of the two most significant such food system alternatives—organics and fair trade—focusing on corporate involvement in establishing and renegotiating the standards undergirding these initiatives. We compare the development of and contestation over the standards for both certified organic and certified fair trade, with particular attention to the U.S. context. We provide a brief history of their parallel processes of rapid growth and market mainstreaming. We examine claims of cooptation by movement participants, as well as the divergences and similarities between the organic and fair trade cases. Analyzing these two cases provides useful insights into the strategic approaches that corporate firms have deployed to further capital accumulation and to defuse threats to their profit margins and to status quo production, pricing, labor, trading and retailing practices. It can also offer valuable lessons regarding the most effective means of responding to such counter-reforms and of protecting or reasserting the more transformative elements at the heart of these alternative systems.

A Savage Sorting of Winners and Losers: Contemporary Versions of Primitive Accumulation

Abstract: Here I explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism. I focus on two diverse instances which share a common systemic logic: expulsing people from more traditional capitalist encasements. One instance is that of countries devastated by an imposed debt and debt-servicing regime which took priority over all other state expenditures; at its most extreme, the ensuing devastation of traditional economies and traditional states has made the land more valuable to the global market than the people on it. The other instance, which I see as a systemic equivalent to the first, is the potential for global replication of the financial innovation that destroyed 15 million plus households in the US in two years, with many more to come; household destruction at this scale devastates whole areas of cities, and leaves vacant lan...

Surveying the agrarian question (part 2): current debates and beyond

Abstract: This two-part article surveys the origin, development and current meaning of the ‘agrarian question’. Part One of the survey explored the history of the agrarian question, elaborating its origin in the work of Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Lenin, and its development in the work of Preobrazhensky, Dobb, Brenner, and others. Part Two of the survey identifies seven current variants of the agrarian question and critically interrogates these variants in order to understand whether, and if so, how, the location of small-scale petty commodity food and farm production within contemporary capitalism has been reconfigured during the era of neoliberal globalisation. Together, the two parts of the survey argue that the agrarian question continues to offer a rigorously flexible framework by which to undertake a historically-informed and country-specific analysis of the material conditions governing rural production, reproduction, and the process of agrarian accumulation or its lack thereof, a process that is located with...

Shared capitalism at work : employee ownership, profit and gain sharing, and broad-based stock options

Abstract: The historical relationship between capital and labor has changed radically in the past few decades. One particularly noteworthy development is the rise of shared capitalism, a system in which workers have become partial owners of their firms and thus, in effect, both employees and stockholders. Profit-sharing arrangements and gain-sharing bonuses, which tie compensation directly to a firm's performance, also reflect this new attitude toward labor. "Shared Capitalism at Work" analyzes the effects of this trend on workers and firms. The contributors focus on four main areas: the fraction of firms that participate in shared capitalism programs in the United States and abroad, the factors that enable these firms to overcome classic free rider and risk problems, the effect of shared capitalism on firm performance, and the impact of shared capitalism on worker well-being. This volume provides essential studies for understanding the increasingly important role of shared capitalism in the modern workplace.

The end of the road?: agricultural revolutions in the capitalist World-ecology, 1450-2010

Abstract: Does the present socio-ecological impasse – captured in popular discussions of the ‘end’ of cheap food and cheap oil – represent the latest in a long history of limits and crises that have been transcended by capital, or have we arrived at an epochal turning point in the relation of capital, capitalism and agricultural revolution? For the better part of six centuries, the relation between world capitalism and agriculture has been a remarkable one. Every great wave of capitalist development has been paved with ‘cheap’ food. Beginning in the long sixteenth century, capitalist agencies pioneered successive agricultural revolutions, yielding a series of extraordinary expansions of the food surplus. This paper engages the crisis of neoliberalism today, and asks: Is another agricultural revolution, comparable to those we have known in the history of capitalism, possible? Does the present conjuncture represent a developmental crisis of capitalism that can be resolved by establishing new agro-ecological conditions for another long wave of accumulation, or are we now witnessing an epochal crisis of capitalism? These divergent possibilities are explored from a perspective that views capitalism as ‘world-ecology’, joining together the accumulation of capital and the production of nature in dialectical unity.

For a New Critique of Political Economy

Abstract: The catastrophic economic, social and political crisis of our time calls for a new and original critique of political economy - a rethinking of Marx's project in the very different conditions of twenty-first century capitalism. Stiegler argues that today the proletarian must be reconceptualized as the economic agent whose knowledge and memory are confiscated by machines. This new sense of the term ‘proletarian' is best understood by reference to Plato's critique of exteriorized memory. By bringing together Plato and Marx, Stiegler can show how a generalized proletarianization now encompasses not only the muscular system, as Marx saw it, but also the nervous system of the so-called creative workers in the information industries. The proletarians of the former are deprived of their practical know-how, whereas the latter are shorn of their theoretical practice, and both suffer from a confiscation of the very possibility of a genuine art of living. But the mechanisms at work in this new and accentuated form of proletarianization are the very mechanisms that may spur a reversal of the process. Such a reversal would imply a crucial distinction between one's life work, originating in otium (leisure devoted to the techniques of the self), and the job, consisting in a negotium (the negotiation and calculation, increasingly restricted to short-term expectations), leading to the necessity of a new conception of economic value. This short text offers an excellent introduction to Stiegler's work while at the same time representing a political call to arms in the face of a deepening economic and social crisis.

Surveying the agrarian question (part 1): unearthing foundations, exploring diversity.

Abstract: This two-part article surveys the origin, development, and current meaning of the ‘agrarian question’. Part one of the survey explores the history of the agrarian question, elaborating its origin in the work of Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Lenin, and its development in the work of Preobrazhensky, Dobb, Brenner, and others. Part two of the survey identifies seven current variants of the agrarian question and critically interrogates these variants in order to understand whether, and if so, how, the location of small-scale petty commodity food and farm production within contemporary capitalism has been reconfigured during the era of neoliberal globalisation. Together, the two parts of the survey argue that the agrarian question continues to offer a rigorously flexible framework by which to undertake a historically-informed and country-specific analysis of the material conditions governing rural production, reproduction, and the process of agrarian accumulation or its lack thereof, a process that can now be loc...

Finance Capitalism Unveiled: Banks and the German Political Economy

Abstract: If we are moving toward one global financial market, will all national financial systems that determine how businesses raise money look the same? Richard Deeg argues that, despite financial market integration and considerable harmonization in the regulation of financial markets, the traditional structure and economic functions of national financial systems are not inevitably undermined. Using the case of Germany--a country with a strong and distinctive financial sector that is at the center of the pressures of economic integration--the author shows how the unique aspects of the German financial sector and its relationship to the German economy have persisted notwithstanding powerful pressures to change. Posing the German model of coordinated capitalism in which banks play an important role in shaping both firm behavior and the possibilities for state intervention in the economy against the liberal model of the United States and Britain in which the securities markets play a much greater role than banks, Deeg shows how the German model has survived competitive pressures in the international economic system that have pushed Germany--and other countries--toward the liberal model. This book will appeal to political scientists and economists interested in international financial markets, globalization, and the comparative study of domestic financial markets, as well as in German politics and the German economy. Richard Deeg is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Temple University.